Buyers Guides > Audio

Is a One-Make System Best?

Each year our major test of one-brand systems is hugely popular, suggesting that the concept of buying everything with the same badge is an appealing one. However, the results of this test are often unpredictable: sources and amps we rate often seem a bit disappointing when used with speakers from the same brand, despite the apparently obvious appeal of 'designed with the same ears' engineering.

So should you buy a one-brand system? Our advice would be that you should only do so if it gives you exactly the sound you're after, not because it all matches or can be driven from a single handset, appealing though those aspects may appear.

True, there are some ranges whose products only really shine when the badge on the front is the same from source to speakers - Linn and Naim stand out as the most obvious examples, the latter even down to the cabling and, if you want, the CDs too! - but in general terms a spot of judicious mixing and matching pays off.

Take a quality brand like Technics, for example: its players sounded smooth and warm, and so did its amps and speakers. Put them all together and the result was certainly rich and easy to listen to, but frankly a bit uninvolving and dull to some ears.

This is not the only brand where a corporate sound is enjoyable in small doses, but too much can seem like chocolate fudge cake with a side order of chocolate ice-cream all washed down with a nice mug of hot chocolate. And would Sir like a little waffer-thin choccie mint to finish?

Hopefully the major technical appeal of one-brand systems - single-handset remote control - will become less of an issue if and when the IEEE1394/Firewire control protocol, or one of its rivals, becomes accepted as an industry standard. Then your Brand A amp will talk to your Brand B CD player and Brand X digital recorder, and all will be hunky dory. Mind you, it won't do much for the fact that most mix and match systems usually turn into a styling hotchpotch and possibly therein lies the problem.

But lower down the market things are less clear: all the mainstream manufacturers have strengths and weakness, not to mention overt characters. It's for that reason like a good meal that a careful combination of flavours, as in all the best recipes, can produce something truly special.

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